Died in the Wool (7 page)

“Well, I try,” I said.

“Then you have to try,” she said.

“I intend to,” I said.

I ran around back and asked Evan if it was okay if we took the quilts somewhere else for Geena to appraise them, since it would be hard for her to work in the dark and dusty environment. He agreed without much argument. We drove the first load over to the Gaheimer House and then came back to the Kendall house to get the quilt that was still in the frame.

As Geena and I carried the quilt out into the sunlight, I got a good look at the design. I gasped and dropped my end of the quilt frame. “What?” Geena asked.

The quilt Glory had been working on when she killed herself was an appliqué floral design. A purplish blue morning glory.

“N-nothing. I stepped in a hole,” I said. I picked up the frame and made sure that I hadn't broken it. It was still in perfect condition. “Can't believe I just dropped an antique.”

“Well, at least it wasn't china,” Geena said. “You'd be screwed for sure if it had been china.”

“Right,” I said. We headed to the van. I had decided to take the seats out of the back of the van, so we could try getting the frame in, and was surprised to find that it almost fit. I tied a little red flag to the part that was sticking out. We were only going a few blocks anyway.

As I pulled out of the driveway, I couldn't help but take a long look at the morning glory vine growing up the side of the porch. Coincidence. Had to be.

Six

Geena and I spent the rest of the day cataloging the quilts. We searched each quilt for initials or dates. Nine of the twenty-one finished quilts had
GAK
quilted somewhere on them, usually in the lower right-hand corner, so we knew for certain those nine were Glory's. We could assume the quilt in the frame was Glory's, and the partially completed quilts as well. In Glory's cedar chest were no fewer than eleven finished quilt tops. The quilt tops were just that, only the top layer. They were waiting to be quilted and hemmed. I had to smile at this, because it always took me much longer to quilt a quilt than to piece one together. In fact, I had four finished tops waiting in a plastic storage bin for me to quilt. I'm not sure why, but this made me feel a bit closer to this girl who had lived a hundred years ago. I guess it was because some things are universal, and even nearly a hundred years ago, this girl suffered from the same thing I did. So much to do, so little time.

Aside from determining which quilts were Glory's, we also separated them into types: pieced, whole cloth, appliqué, etc. We might never determine who made the other twelve quilts—the ones without Glory's initials—but we at least needed to determine their approximate age.

We worked until almost sunset. Finally, Geena stretched and winced at a pain in her lower back. “I need to call it a day,” she said. “Can I come back tomorrow?”

“Of course you can come back tomorrow,” I said. “I'll be here bright and early. My sister is working tomorrow, too, so somebody will be here when you arrive.”

She paused at the front door and turned to me. “I don't know what happened to that girl—or what happened in that house—but at least her quilts will finally be seen.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Torie, have you
seen
the craftsmanship in those quilts?”

“Yes,” I said.

“She was amazing.”

“I know,” I said.

Geena left me alone to ponder the day. I walked back to my office and called Rudy. I asked him to pick up Matthew from my mother's because I was going to be a little late. I wanted to do some research on the Kendall family suicides. I knew Sylvia probably had a file on the family. Hell, Sylvia probably had known Glory Kendall. In fact, they would have been born right about the same time, within five years or so of each other.

Right now, though, I wanted to do my own research. One thing I'd learned about Sylvia was that she often tainted her research with her own prejudices. Ironic, considering the woman was all business and no pleasure, most of the time. She rarely let her personal life interfere—in anything. Be that as it may, I had seen her more than once make a mental leap based on her opinion of whatever family she was researching, so I thought it would be better if I dug a little on my own and then later read whatever Sylvia had on the Kendalls. As of right now, I really didn't know any more about the family than most other people in New Kassel did. Besides, I wanted the documents to tell me the story, not somebody else.

The first thing I did was head over to Santa Lucia, the Catholic church. By the time I reached the church, it was nearly six in the evening. The sun was getting lower in the sky, but I still had a while before it set. The church is made of stone and has Gothic-arched stained-glass windows along two sides. It really is a very pretty church, and the only Catholic church within twenty miles.

I'd noticed a rosary among some of the things in Glory's cedar chest, so, unless it had been someone else's, she was most likely Catholic. I had checked the cemetery records at the historical society before I left. The members of the historical society and volunteers had spent long hours cataloging every tombstone in every cemetery in Granite County and putting the records in book format for the historical society library. Sure enough, Glory Anne Kendall was buried in the Santa Lucia cemetery. Right next to her parents. However, her two brothers were not. The date on her death was recorded as June 14, 1922. Her father had lived to 1956. Her mother, of course, had preceded all the children in death, having died in 1913.

So where were her brothers buried?

I walked quickly through the cemetery until I found Sandy Kendall's tombstone. It was huge, about five feet tall and made of very stately white marble. His wife's stone, to his left, was a smaller version of it. Both paled seriously in comparison to Glory's. When I realized that
this
was the grave of Glory Kendall, I felt like an idiot. How many times had I seen this monument and even commented about how gorgeous it was, never realizing it belonged to the young woman who had killed herself on Haggeman Road?

Lounging on top of a marble tomb that must have been four feet high was a full-sized sculpture of Glory Kendall, lying on her side, raised up on one elbow, her hand cradling her face; the other hand lay gently on her hip. It was both beautiful and creepy all at the same time. The tomb was engraved with the words:
Glory Anne Kendall. Beloved daughter, angel of God, sleep forever in the arms of the Lord. Entered this world the 2nd of April 1897. Ripped from our hearts the 14th of June 1922.

She'd been a whopping twenty-five years old. I suppose, back then, her father was most likely worried that she'd be a spinster. Nowadays, girls were just finishing up college about that age. I headed back toward the church, glancing over my shoulder at Glory Kendall's likeness.

I knocked on the rectory door, and Father Bingham answered. I've noticed that at the bigger churches in the city or even in St. Louis County, not too many priests answer their own doors. Usually a secretary or a housekeeper does that. Father Bingham almost always answers his own door unless he's saying mass or hearing confession. What hair he has left is dark, like his beard, and behind his glasses his eyes are very kind. He isn't overweight by any means, but you definitely get the feeling that he doesn't miss any meals.

“Torie,” he said. “How can I help you?”

“I was wondering if I could look at the records,” I said.

“What are you interested in?” he said, as he motioned me into his home. There was a photograph of the new pope in the hallway, but I saw that Father Bingham had just moved Pope John Paul II's photograph to the other wall. He noticed me looking. “Can't imagine this hallway without John Paul.”

“Oh,” I said.

“So what are you looking for?” he asked.

“I want to do some research on the Kendall family,” I said. “In fact, I was wondering where the sons were buried. They're not in the cemetery with Glory and her parents.”

Father Bingham shook his head. “You know, back then … they probably wouldn't have allowed them to be buried here. Since they committed suicide.”

“Well, yes, but so did Glory Kendall.”

“I'm not sure why, but Sandy Kendall got special dispensation to get Glory buried next to him,” he said. “Father O'Brien never disclosed the reasons to me before he retired. Only that Sandy had gotten special dispensation.”

“Oh,” I said. My mind was racing. What special dispensation? What would be the grounds for a dispensation to get a suicide victim buried in sacred ground?

“You know, so many things have changed now,” he said. “Thanks to Vatican II.”

“Right,” I said.

“There was a man who showed up to church every day, best Catholic I'd ever seen, but when he died his wife had him put in a Protestant cemetery. When I asked her why, she said it was because he'd never divorced his first wife. He'd simply picked up and moved to Missouri, where she'd met him. He told her the truth, and she agreed to go along with the charade, but when it came time to bury him, she couldn't lie anymore. She felt compelled. So he's buried out at the Methodist cemetery. Honestly, though, since the Second Vatican Council, he could probably have been buried here and nobody would have said anything to her. Some of the older people can't get used to the new way of doing things. I had one old lady just last month ask if we were ever going to have a Latin mass again.” He chuckled at the thought of it.

“You don't have to tell me weird burial stories. My great-grandfather put tombstones in a churchyard for two of his children that weren't even buried there. They were buried ten miles away in the Baptist cemetery. Seems these two children had died, he'd ordered the tombstones, and then while he was waiting for the tombstones to arrive, he got into a big fight with the minister at the church and said he'd never set foot on that church soil again. And he didn't. When the tombstones came in, he put them in the Methodist cemetery, which was the new church that he was attending. So there are two unmarked graves at the Baptist cemetery, and two stones without bodies at the Methodist cemetery. All because my great-grandfather was stubborn. Guess he didn't learn too much in Sunday school about forgiveness, huh?”

Father Bingham laughed at my story. “You always have the most interesting tales to tell,” he said.

I shrugged and smiled. “At any rate, I was wondering if I could get some dates from the records, so then I could go to the newspapers and look for articles.”

“Sure,” he said. He led me into an office where all of the church records are kept on shelves lining the walls. It's a room that I've been in many times.

“What do you know about the Kendall family?” I asked just as he was about to leave me to the books. Father Bingham is about sixty now, maybe a little younger, so it's not as if he was around when the Kendall suicides happened. Still, being a man of the cloth, he might have heard a good number of stories about the family.

“Not much,” he said, “but when you're finished here, I might have a few names of people who would know something. One man lives over in Wisteria. He puts flowers on Glory's grave every June. He must be ninety. I have no idea what his connection is to her or the family, but I know his name.”

“All right,” I said. “I'll get that from you when I'm finished.”

He left me to my business, and at first all I could do was stare at the walls. I have no idea why, but suddenly I felt overwhelmed, as if there were a huge and daunting task ahead of me. I took a deep breath and pulled a book from one of the shelves.

It was the baptismal records for the 1890s. Glory was born in 1897, so I assumed her brothers weren't too much older or younger than she was. For some reason I felt that Glory was the baby of the family. Just a hunch? Maybe it was some tidbit of town gossip that I'd picked up down through the years and didn't even realize it. The baptismal records revealed that, indeed, she was the youngest. Well, except for a sister who had died at three months of age, who had been born in 1900. Glory's brothers were Whalen Sanders Kendall, born in 1891, and Rupert Anthony Kendall, born in 1894. The great thing about parish records is, as long as you were a member of the parish, sometimes other notes would be added to your baptismal records. Some of my ancestors from France, for instance, have who they married and when they died penciled in next to their baptismal records.

Next to Whalen and Rupert Kendall were their death notes. Nothing extravagant, just the years 1922 and 1921. So within twelve months Sandy Kendall lost all three children to suicide. What the hell had happened? It was fairly rare for a suicide to happen in any family, but three? Within a year? And all three just happened to be siblings? Well, at least I knew which newspapers to check, which was what I had come for.

As I left the room, Father Bingham was coming around the corner with a cup of hot tea. “Do you want some?” he asked.

“No, thanks,” I said. “I've got to get going.”

“Find what you wanted?”

“Sort of,” I said. “What I really want is to know what happened to that family, and the baptismal records can't tell me that.”

“Marty Tarullo,” he said. “That's the old guy's name. Lives in Wisteria on … oh, can't remember.”

“That's all right,” I said. “I can get his address from the white pages, either online or the old fashioned way.”

“The only other person that I know of who might be able to help you is a woman named … um … Judy Pipkin.”

“Oh, I know Judy Pipkin,” I said. “She's done some volunteer work for the historical society. Why would she be able to help?”

“She has some connection to the family. I'm not sure what it is.”

“Wow. Well, thanks for the tips,” I said.